I believe that, generally speaking, authors get
more per unit for e-books than they do for p-books. In any case, they do get paid for e-books just as they would for paper ones, and if the book is in hardback, the e-price is going to be fairly comparable to that price, so your author will get paid as she normally would, I expect.
If you're really concerned, you could always send her some money directly -- the patron model pre-dates the publishing-house model, by many hundreds of years.
